Page 13 of Deadly Aloha
“I have to get to her,” I managed to get out.
I couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t I breathe? Looking down my body, I realized that Aftermath had both arms locked around me in a vice. Red was on my other side, both arms wrapped around one of my legs. When he realized I saw how he was holding my leg, he flushed and immediately let go of me.
Tangaloa gripped my chin, bringing my face forward towards him. “We’ll get to her. But we’re outnumbered. We need to even the odds, andthenyou can kill all the Bloody Scorpions you want. Okay, brother?”
I nodded, my rage not cooling in the slightest. They touched mywahine.
I won’t kill them.
I’llevisceratethem and bathe in their blood.
I metLuana Palakiko nearly a decade ago. Two years my junior, she was everything I wasn’t. Sweet, kind, fun, carefree, beautiful… After my mom’s death and my dad’s disappearance, I’d turned bitter. I couldn’t control my sister and my island was in need of protection. I took my rage out on those who dared to harm my home.
Then I was introduced to Lu at a friend of a friend’s party, and it was like the world shifted. She had a way of softening my hard edges and making me feel not so wild. But she also had a tendency to land herself into a world of trouble. Some had warned me that her nickname growing up was “Bad Luck Lu”, but I hadn’t cared. Iwantedher, bad luck and all.
It took me a long time to realize that, yeah, shedidhave bad luck. She could choose a convenience store at random andthat’sthe one that had to get robbed while she was inside. Or the weather was perfectly fine for her to go sailing, but the minute she hit the water, a thunderstorm raged. There was no doubting her rotten luck, but not all of it was Lono turning her back on her.
A lot of her trouble was one-hundred percentLu.
I loved her loyalty, because once you had it, it was yours for life. She was kind to a fault, and sometimes that kindness came back to haunt her. Like when a homeless man she used to give money to started stalking her and eventually broke into her home. Or the friend she let borrow her car got into a car accident and tried to sue Lu because it was Lu’s car she was driving when she ran that red light.
Lu’s ability to find trouble was unprecedented, but I loved her in spite of it. I loved her so much that I’d asked her to marry me. But things were…bad around that time for me. In retrospect, I had used Lu as a crutch to ease my pain without doing anything to ease it myself. My actions and work with the activist groups had only buried my pain and grief.
After nearly dying, Lu had made me swear to quit. In my defense, when I had made that promise, I thought it was true. I thought I could stop. But then word got back to me about a group of poachers hunting sea turtles, and I couldn’t ignore that. Not on my island.
They thought they could hunt the sea turtles for their shells and toss the carcasses back into the ocean? Let’s see howtheyliked it when I removed their spines and did the same.
I thought Lu would understand. I’d gone home to explain my reasoning to her. I needed her to see that I hadn’t been hurt again. Instead, I walked in to her waiting in my kitchen, my ring already off her finger.
She’d had enough. She couldn’t stay home worrying about me, wondering if this was the day I was going to go too far, and either be killed or arrested. I’d stood there in silence, letting her talk and explain her reasons.
She kept playing with the damn ring the entire time she talked. Round and around between her fingers, and all I kept praying for was that she’d put it back on. Tangaloa had gone shopping with me for it. He’d tried to convince me to buy a traditional diamond ring, but I’d said no. I knew my Lu. She didn’t want diamonds. She loved pearls, specifically Tahitian black pearls. So that was what I got her, even though both Tangaloa and the dealer had said a diamond ring would bring better luck to our union.
I hadn’t believed them. And then I’d watched her place it on the counter between us. I couldn’t stop staring at that damn ring. Like if she’d just put it back on, it would solve all our problems.
I hadn’t stopped her from walking out my front door. Something broke within me the day Lu left. Something I hadn’t even known I’d possessed. Those pieces were now held together by glue, duct tape, and paperclips. I was doing the best I could with the shit I had.
If Lu couldn’t love me, no one could.
I’d moved on. She’d left me, I’d forget about her. And I had, for the most part. Every once in a while, I’d get a pang in my chest when something reminded me of her, but that was it. I’d push it aside and get drunk, smoke a joint, or fuck a cam girl until that pang vanished.
Seeing her on the shoulder of a Bloody Scorpion… It all came rushing back in a tidal wave. Lu wasmine. She might have walked out my door, might have given me back that pearl ring I’d saved up over a year for to give to her, but that didn’t change anything.
I was going to save her.
I was going to get her back.
I just might have to call in a lot of favors to do it. I didn’t care, though. I’d owe Ulupoka himself if it meant getting her back alive and unharmed.
The mission had changed. It was no longer about getting the Bloody Scorpions off my island, but getting to Lu. I didn’t know if I could trust Red and Aftermath. They were Royal Bastards, and technically I was supposed to be helping them, but I would not risk Lu’s life on their inexperience. I didn’t know what they could do or how accurate they were.
I was barely in control of myself, knowing Lu was inside that storage facility. We were back outside the SUV, Tangaloa alwaysbetween me and that fucking building. Like he was afraid I was still going to bolt towards it.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t.
I needed to get inside that building. To do that, I needed the twins. They were young, but they’d suffered through a lot of trauma, making them scarily lethal. Except they were guarding the Royal Bastards Ol’ Ladies.
I had no choice. I called a number I thought I’d never have to. Who actually called their neighbors?
